On 11 May 99, at 0:47, John R Levine wrote:
> > Do mailing list archives have any protection against being held
> > liable for copyright infringement?
>
> I am not a lawyer, but I rarely let that stop me.
>
> As you suspect, you're being shaken down, and the situation is nowhere near
> as cut and dried as the letter claims it is. The copies of the poem could
> fall under the fair use exemption, particularly if people were commenting on
> it, not just sending it in.
I don't think that 'fair use' extends as far as a lot of folk usually
think it does. I'd bet that if we saw some of the submitted alleged-
infinging posts they wouldn't really be fair use. [Note that Jeff's forum
is not a poetry review/commentary list]
> .. Even if it is infringing, it's not clear whether
> you are the infringer or the people who sent the poem to the mailing list
> are. And realistically, nobody's going to sue you for $200, which is what a
> court would likely award. I'd delete the messages with the poems from the
> archive, and maybe write back. I certainly wouldn't pay.
This is always a toss up, but I'd agree [although I'd call a lawyer
first]: there is no reason ever to answer one of these sorts of things.
Let the lawyer actually go and file suit, if they wish. I would,
however, immediately remove the material from the archives [and also
notify the folks that sent it to the list that a copyright holder has
stepped forward to challenge their submission].
> The new Digital Millenium Copyright Act specifically exempts service
> providers for liability for innocent infringement so long as you register
> yourself with the copyright office. Anyone who runs a web site with content
> provided by others should consider registering. See
> http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/onlinesp/
I don't think this is correct. OCILLA would exempt the site *running*
the web-server with the archive, but my reading of it wouldn't provide a
means of exempting the web-*page*-owner. If you are putting the
material on *your* web page, then, to my reading, OCILLA doesn't apply
and *you* are not going to be exempt..
I wrote a little almost-in-English summary of OCILLA, how it works and
what it does. If you're interested email me..
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:bernie @
fantasyfarm .
com Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--